ASTROLOGY

YOUR PLACE IN THE STARS

MARS IN CANCER

IN Cancer, Mars is in his fall; but Cancer is so
receptive a sign that its influence is not antagonistic. In fact, it makes the martial
energy subtle and profound, dissolving it, as it were, and thus making it more active,
just as a solution of phenol is more corrosive than the crystals themselves.

Some of the very greatest artists that have even lived have this position of Mars; it
seems as if the specialized energy which he represents were somehow made universal. There
is not that same concentration upon a single line that is shown, for example, by Mars in
Aries; there have been found very few instances of politicians or conquerors or even great
generals with this position. Every one of our illustrations has worked for the general
good, not the particular good of any person or even any country, unless we consider
Alexander II as having done so. But even his action with regard to the serfs should be
regarded as the limited expression of a wide humanitarian intention. And in this case Mars
has the opposition of Jupiter, though it is directed wisely by Saturn's trine, and made
gentle by the sextile of Venus.

There is, of course, one very unfortunate career to consider; that of Marie Antoinette.
Here Mars is very strong, rising trine to Uranus, with no affliction but a square of the
Moon. The Moon ruling the female life, and in this case being Lady of the Ascendant, we
must regard her rather than Mars as the key to the complex. We must say then that her Moon
is afflicted by the presence in the Ascendant {330} of Mars in his fall. All the good she
gets from the complex is a towering practical ambition, which was indeed successful, so
far as it went, Uranus trined by Mars being in her tenth house. But Saturn, lord of the
seventh, being in his own house in the eighth, afflicting and afflicted by the square of
the Moon, even the marriage which gratified her ambition resulted in her death.

To return to artists, we have the most amazing galaxy; Shakespeare, Petrarch, Michael
Angelo, Byron, Balzac, Dante, and, in their wake, Coleridge. It is to be noted how, in
each case, the universality of sympathy is evident. Each has an enormous field of
expression. There is not the intensity of Baudelaire or the single-minded passion of
Blake; it is, rather, breadth and objectivity of outlook, and completeness of
comprehension of humanity that stand revealed. And to his heavenly court of artists we may
add a philosopher, one of the greatest, in every way, that ever lived: Immanuel Kant;
while, should they need an astronomer to observe more accurately their heaven, they may
include in their ranks the shining name of Copernicus.

For the benefit of those who are not in possession of Raphael's Ephemeris, or who are
not able to interpret the symbols contained therein, the years when Mars is in the sign
Cancer are as follows: